The New York Times in a recent opinion page stated that “A CHICAGO police officer shot and killed a teenager named Laquan McDonald in October of last year, but most of us learned about Mr. McDonald only last week, after a judge ordered the release of police video footage of his death. That is also when prosecutors finally brought first-degree murder charges against the officer. Clearly, such footage has considerable power.”
Why did it take a year for the release of the video which prompted first-degree murder charges? Perhaps it is obvious but as the New York Times states, it is because the police own the video footage recorded by most of these camera programs and, as described in the article, the body cameras.
About a third of police departments in the United States have started to use body cameras, and they typically have almost complete control over the programs. Police departments decide when cameras should be rolling, how long the footage is stored, who gets to see it and how it can be used in the future. Individual officers operate the record button, and their supervisors decide what happens when those officers fail to comply with the department’s recording policy (usually, not much).
The author of the article, a staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders went on to write about the issues facing the New York Police Body Camera Program:
Cory H. Morris 